Advice To Self: How Glenaisa Davis shifts the lens with honest conversations

By JaJuan Morris-Guity

In a powerful new video project titled Advice To Self, Working the Gap participant and Starrett City resident Glenaisa Davis is creating space for honest conversations about mental health, healing, and intergenerational understanding within the Black community. The project brings together Teen Central members alongside young adults; some connected to The Opportunity Hub and others from the broader community, to share advice they would give to either their younger or older selves. For the youth, that means speaking to the adults they hope to become. For adults, it means reflecting on the wisdom and compassion they earned through living life.

“I’m doing this for my younger self as a young black girl trying to figure out her identity and had no one to talk to about any issues mentally or emotionally,” Davis said.

The video is part of Teen Central Voices, a well-being-focused initiative developed through the Working the Gap (WTG) program. Founded in 2023, Working the Gap Initiative was created to prepare young adults through wellness-centered and community-driven work. Over the course of ten months, participants are encouraged to identify pressing issues affecting their communities and develop meaningful responses using Youth Participatory Action Research.

While participants explored several possible topics, including climate justice, housing, education, and economics, the youth ultimately chose to focus on mental health. According to Davis, the decision came from a shared belief that many communities still lack proper care, support, and mentorship opportunities for young people navigating emotional struggles.

The project also confronts long-standing cultural expectations placed on young Black men. Many participants reflected on growing up hearing phrases like “boys don’t cry,” “be tough because you’re a man,” or being told emotional expression was somehow “sassy” or weak. Through story circles and candid video conversations, Advice to Self aims to challenge those harmful ideas and encourages vulnerability, self-expression, and healing.

“We’re all human at the end of the day, and we all go through emotions,” Davis shared. “Some of us handle that differently than others, whether it’s picking up bad habits or passing down built-up anger to the next generation.”

Using storytelling as a qualitative research method, the project aims to do more than document experiences — it seeks to affirm young people who often feel unseen or unheard. At its core, Advice to Self delivers a simple but powerful message: youth voices matter; their emotions are valid, and they are deeply loved.

Photo by Glenaisa Davis